The iPhone is undeniably slick, with powerful hardware, good battery life, a capable music platform, and a thriving applications ecosystem. But in terms of contract and cost of the phone, it remains pricey. And its business applications and features still trail those of Research In Motion's Blackberry.

Moving into first place was the Blackberry Curve, which covers several Blackberry 83xx models according to Apple Inisider. Coming in a close third was the Blackberry Storm, and the Blackberry Pearl took fourth (excluding the flip variety). The fifth spot was occupied by T-Mobile's G1 phone, the first phone to feature Google's Android OS.

The trouncing that RIM laid on Apple and its other competitors grew the company's smart phone market share 15 percent to seize a commanding 50 percent of the market. Palm, which is awaiting the release of the much-anticipated Pre, and Apple, meanwhile, saw their market shares sink 10 percent.

Market research firm NPD says that Blackberry pricing was made even sweeter by Verizon's aggressive "buy-one-get-one" promotion, which gave RIM the momentum it needed to dominate the sales charts. Analyst Ross Rubin states, "The more familiar, and less expensive, Curve benefited from these giveaways and was able to leapfrog the iPhone, due to its broader availability on the four major U.S. national carriers."

Globally, smartphones now account for 23 percent of the cell phone market, rising 6 percent on a year to year basis. Given the troubled financial state of many consumers, Mr. Rubin calls this a very good sign for smart phone makers and evidence that customers are continuing to "(migrate) toward Web-capable handsets and their supporting data plans to access more information and entertainment on the go."

RIM reported previously record sales of 7.8 million Blackberries in the year's first quarter, while Apple posted weaker sales of 3.79 million units.

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I've owned a few Blackberrys. Honestly...I can't understand why people like them. The interface was not intuitive, QWERTY keyboards are wasted space and difficult to type on, and the screens are very poor quality. Add to that the plastic feel and lack of app support...and It's hard to see why anyone would choose that over an iPhone.

I assume the business sales are relatively high due to the cheaper entry price-point. Other than that, it's an inferior device in every way.

quote: Honestly...I can't understand why people like them. The interface was not intuitive, QWERTY keyboards are wasted space and difficult to type on, and the screens are very poor quality.

And yet, I've seen 60 year olds typing away like they were 19.. BB's are very easy to use, actually have buttons and usually work without a hitch. As for the screens being low quality, I think you need to come rejoin the rest of us in 2009, BB products are vastly different than those of even a few years ago.

quote: Add to that the plastic feel and lack of app support...and It's hard to see why anyone would choose that over an iPhone.

While the older products were mainly plastic, almost all of their new models have some kind of metalic surface somewhere on the phone. So I am not too sure what you point is.

The iPhone does not have a keyboard plain and simple, when it comes down to it, a large percentage of people want a keyboard. Personally I love touch a good touch interface, but many, many people do not. I used to be able to type a phone message or dial without looking at my phone, this is just not possible with the iPhone.

Price cannot be the only reason either, as a large portion of their sales come from the corporate environment, and they are probably not getting these phones for free.

Personally I cannot stand BB devices, but to say it is an inferior device in every way is just being naive.

Hmmmm no. I can type MUCH faster on an iPhone touchscreen than I ever could on my BB's. Have you ever actually looked at a BB screen next to the iPhone screen? If you did then you wouldn't have made such a rediculous comment.

I'm sure that Verizon giving away Curves for FREE (because that's really what they are worth) didn't have anything to do with this recent bump.......

Your comments are obviously bias. I have a touch phone, and I've never owned a BB, but one thing is for sure, typing on a BB is easier and has a much faster learning curve than the iphone or any other touch device for that matter. That alone makes a hard keyboard more attractive to a lot of users, especially older ones.

I have compared the two side by side, and to tell you the truth i was not that impressed. Even when comparing to Windows mobile, I can type faster on my WinMo phone than on the iphone (especially since I can type in landscape). For the few times I've actually used a BB extensively, I picked it up right away, I can't say that for either my phone (winMo) or the iPhone.

There was one thing that I always thought about when I hear about cellphone companies wanting multitouch on their phones: Why? Why is it so important? Multitouch doesn't help with typing, sifting through files, or anything major.

But you can zoom in and zoom out with two fingers! Yeah, or just use a scroll bar to the side.

But you can rotate! Or just push a button that says "rotate this way" or "rotate that way".

IMO, cell phone companies seem to want multitouch just because Apple has it, and that's just pointless. Yes, I agree the patent is bullsh|t and if cell phone companies should have rights to it if they want it without having to pay an arm and a leg for it, but if the annoying legal system won't let them do it, FORGET about it. Just make an awesome single touch user interface and be done with it.

What patent are you talking about? From your post, it would seem like you're implying that apple owns the patent on multi-touch displays. I find that hard to believe, so could you post a link to that patent?

Now, there was a patent that was related to gestures that apple filed. It seems like a bunch of crap that will not hold up in courts, but that really is separate from multitouch technology. It wasn't multitouch gestures that were patented, but the process of calculating any type of gesture, single or multi.

Most of my female friends had to go with either a resistive screen or a touch-screen because while I personally LOVE a capacitive screen (I have an iPhone 3G), they were not able to use it because of their long finger-nails.

And they would rather get a phone with resistive screen or buttons than cut their nails or not get stick-ons.

/me shrugs

Fashion counts for something I guess.

Also, have YOU looked at a BB screen next to an iPhone? The new BB screens are high resolution and give great picture quality. Take a look at a Bold next time you go into a store. Fantastic screen.

QWERTY keyboards are wasted space and are difficult to type on? I think I'd much prefer touch-typing with hard buttons rather than poking around on a touch-screen that didn't provide any tactile feedback.

I've got an old-school 8700 (no upgrades from work nowadays!), and I think the screen is more than acceptable for its interface.

quote: I think I'd much prefer touch-typing with hard buttons rather than poking around on a touch-screen that didn't provide any tactile feedback.

I think I would much prefer if you gave your opinion only about your experiences rather than posting meaningless conjecture about your preconcieved notions. Tactile feedback is not necisary. You may be used to having it but thats a personal issue, not a product issue.

I was thinking we could all express our opinions here, even if our opinions are pure speculation.

And for the record, I agree with the OP; I think that tactile response is important. It's funny seeing the difference between someone typing on an iPhone (slow)compared to someone typing on a ohone with a full proper keyboard (fast).

You know, some of use use phones as a tool to actually get something done, not just as a toy for playing cheesy games, and the iphone fails in that department. Typing a long email on a touchscreen is a chore. Since there's no tactile feedback, I constantly have to look down on the so-called keyboard to see if the key I pressed is actually the one I meant to press.

Music platform? Wake me up when the iphone can play music via stereo bluetooth. Copy & paste? Why, when you can just retype the whole thing over, since the touch screen makes it look so cool. App platform? Sure, as long as you like being fed what Apple says is good for you, and can't be bothered to think for yourself. Battery life? Good luck if you go for more than a day without charging. No Java support, no Flash support, can't even set your own mp3's as ringtones without dicking around with itunes. Sounds more and more like a dumbphone hyped up beyond belief.

Yea yea I hear ya. iPhone is maturing still, until version 3.0 that should come this June it is somewhat castrated. Apple hasn't put the real pressure on competitors yet because the iPhone OS was in its infancy all these years. I expect the real heat to turn up this June when the last nitpicky little feature complaints are finaly resolved and you can listen to the music through BT and whatnot. Until June it was mostly the rehearsal, Apple tried their muscle, probed the market, worked with the cell industry first time. It was mostly years of learning lessons for them and gathering feedback from consumers. The real battle for the huge emerging smartphone market is yet to come. In two years from now we'll see the first real results of some hardcore competition between mature mobile OSes. Now it's not hardcore enough. A rehearsal, just a rehearsal :)

quote: Since there's no tactile feedback, I constantly have to look down on the so-called keyboard to see if the key I pressed is actually the one I meant to press.

Is there an iPhone app that vibrates after you press a key on the softkeyboard? I find this really helps me on my winMo phone. Half the problem with soft keyboards is you don't know if you actually pressed the key. Its very easy to memorize where the locations of each button is, (just like you would do on a tactile keyboard) Its entirely another to know if you actually pressed the key (hard enough etc) and if you accidentally pressed it twice and such.

quote: Wake me up when the iphone can play music via stereo bluetooth

Well.. I guess you should get prepared to wake up, the next update will take care of this.

quote: Copy & paste?

Same boat..

quote: No Java support, no Flash support, can't even set your own mp3's as ringtones without dicking around with itunes. Sounds more and more like a dumbphone hyped up beyond belief.

Don't really need Java support when everyone is developing for your phone. No phone has real flash.. Believe me, I've had working flashlite 3 on my phone for 8 months now and it is nothing to lose sleep over.

quote: You know, some of use use phones as a tool to actually get something done

I detest a lot of things Apple and I HATE the company. But, the iPhone is the first and only product so far that is actually almost as good as advertised. The functionality and the accessories are 2nd to none.

When I am sitting in the office, watching Live TV on my phone and yet still being able to see texts and get email alerts, I mean that's pretty sweet.

Can remotely run my computer, stream LIVE tv over the air and has access to a ton of applications that can do pretty much everything you can think of.

Also, due to the speed of access of the phone, I am typically the point person amongst my group of friends for wiki'ing information, buying tickets online to places like the Alamo Drafthouse and so forth.

I also have a mobile entertainment system with Pandora and a much larger screen which provides fantastic multimedia capabilities and a 16 GB storage capacity. Further, due to my ability to stream videos and audio via ORB, I am only limited in my storage capabilities by the size of my hard-drive at home. Visual Voicemail is a massive time-saver and I can easily call my parents overseas via Skype.

There are a whole host of other things I can bring up but it gets pretty boring slamming something else.

Honestly, if you want to try and denigrate a product only by bringing up some of it's limited failings (many of which are due to be fixed in an upcoming release (and my buddy runs os 3.0 right now and it is pretty good) you really need to try harder. As I have said before and will continue to say, the iphone itself is a good product. I HATE the company and it's methods but they did a great job with the phone.

your Storm has Pandora? your Storm has Visual Voicemail? It "pretty much" doesn't have a lot of what the iPhone offers. I take that back, Verizon will be offering a Visual Voicemail of their own, but from everything I've read it's horrible.Nothing touches the iPhone, as you mentioned it's because of the App store. And while there are a lot of dumb iFart type apps. There are hundreds, if not thousands of incredible ones. Beatmaker is possibly the most advanced and cool app on any cell phone PERIOD. It replaces $350 worth of music software on my PC, and honestly does a better job than anything I've used on a PC. The VNC proggy I use is bad ass. I use XBMC Music Streamer and the music on my PC is available anywhere I get Wifi or 3G. The Google Calendar app is awesome, and the custom iPhone only versions of Facebook & Myspace are so good they almost make me want to use the sites. And it's Youtube player is fucking fantastic. Light years ahead of any other phone. And don't even get me started on Safari, no not even Storms better than average mobile browser is as good. I don't give a shit about Apple, but I <3 my iPhone and my Touch.